This invention is directed toward a nutshell cracker and method of use. The nutshell cracker has three or more cracking members, each with a concave cracking surface, a central slot on its top with eyelets on either side. The 3-D design and curvature of the invention make it stylish, sleek, and attractive, and suitable for storage upon a table or kitchen countertop. The cracking members rotate about the connecting member, surrounding the nut on three or more sides, thereby allowing the user to apply less pressure per cracking member to achieve the same overall pressure upon the nutshell as would be applied through use of a traditional nutcracker. Having cracking members on three or more sides also increases the ability of the invention to constrain the nutshell during cracking and decreases the chances that once cracked, the actual nut will squirt out the side and fall on the floor.
The effective cracking of nuts has been a problem facing humans throughout recorded history. Nuts have long been sought as a good source of food, but most commonly eaten varieties are protected with a hard shell, which needs to be cracked before the nut can be removed from the shell and eaten. Presumably the first nut cracking invention was the use of a small rock to cracks nuts against a larger rock, but over time humans realized that using leverage, they could crack nuts by pulling two opposing cracking members toward each other when the cracking members were connected at their tops.
Humans living close to the ocean were also faced with the problem of how to crack the hard shell and legs of crabs and lobsters. It is thought that they also began smashing the shells with rocks, then trying to salvage the meat from the broken shells. Over time it was discovered that the same principles as were used with primitive nut crackers could be used to effectively crack—but not smash—the shells and leg portions of crabs and lobsters, thereby preserving more of the meat.
As humans evolved, however, so did their tool-making abilities and their desire for cleaner, more effective and less messy methods of removing a nut from a nutshell and meat from a crab or lobster leg or pincher.
The prior art has several examples of attempts to resolve this problem. There are a number of mass-production shelling methods, such as those found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,879,734 and 6,135,020 to Broyles, 5,931,087 to Spencer, 5,711,213 to Thomson, 4,183,967 to Nelson, 4,996,917 and 4,909,140 to Burlock, and US Patent Application No. 20050045050 to Broyles. The devices are not, however, useful for the average consumer who wishes to crack several rather than several thousand nuts at a time.
In terms of tools useful for the average consumer, there are a number of nutcrackers with two cracking members, such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,938,733 to Carlson, 2,989,103 to Walling, 5,206,997 to Cunningham, 4,370,922 to Rollband, and US Patent Application Nos. 20040194317 to Pippert and 20040251357 to Lenzkes. None of these nutcrackers, however, effectively contain the nut within the cracking members to the degree that the current invention does, nor are any of them designed to stand upright or serve as an attractive decoration in the dining room or kitchen area when not in use. Many of these inventions are also quite complex, with a large number of adjustments needed for use and a large number of moving parts, thereby rendering them expensive to product and difficult to use, clean, and take apart for repair or replacement of parts.
The prior art includes several tools designed to remove the meat from crustaceans, such as those found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,800,256 to Bermudez and US Patent Application No. 20050181716 to Gillespsie. These meat picking tools, while facing a similar problem—how to get a desired article of food out from a hard, protective shell—deal with an entirely different type of approach: namely, the insertion of the tool and removal of the crustacean meat without cracking open entirely the crustacean shell prior to removing the meat.
Thus there has existed a long-felt need for nutcracker usable by an average single consumer of nuts, as opposed to a nut-processing factory, which is stylish enough to be left out on a table or kitchen countertop when not in use, but which can also effectively contain a nut for cracking and prevent the nut from squirting out one side or the other as the nutshell is cracked open. A similar need has existed for a device which can efficiently crack open the shells, legs, and pinchers of lobsters and crabs in a manner which cracks the shells but does not crush the inside meat.
The current invention provides just such a solution by having a nutshell cracker that has three or more cracking members, each with a concave cracking surface, a central slot on its top with eyelets on either side. A connecting member with as many radiating partitions as there are cracking members sits in the middle of the invention, where the partitions fit within the slots at the top of the cracking member. Each division has a central hole, where the holes in each division which line up with the eyelets of the cracking members, with a snap pin attaching the cracking member to the connecting member. The cracking members rotate about the connecting member, surrounding the nut on three or more sides, thereby allowing the user to apply less pressure per cracking member to achieve the same overall pressure upon the nutshell as would be applied through use of a traditional nutcracker. Having cracking members on three or more sides also increases the ability of the invention to constrain the nutshell during cracking and decreases the chances that once cracked, the actual nut will squirt out the side and fall on the floor. The 3-D design and curvature of the invention make it stylish, sleek, and attractive, and suitable for storage upon a table or kitchen countertop.
It should be noted that while the primary purpose of this invention is to crack nuts in a manner superior to past methods, the invention can be used to crack the shells, legs, and pinchers of lobsters, crabs, and other hard-shelled animals.